[prompt: music ]
[notes: (modern) au where xinyan is a very popular musician!! and she got a lil creative trying to hide from the paparazzi! and soulmate au bc i couldn't resist okay sue me ]
All Xiangling is doing is waiting for a taxi. It's cloudy and gray outside and she's having the most ordinary day ever, trying to get home before Guoba thinks she's disappeared..
"Hey!" A loud voice is right in her ear and a girl she's never seen before is there, an arm around her shoulder. Like this is something she does every day.
Xiangling is about to slap the girl away, thinking she's drunk, but an earnest whisper reaches her ears.
"I'm real sorry about this, but could you please do me a favor? I'm tryin' to avoid the paparazzi and could use an escape route!" She does her best attempt at puppy eyes, but they just make her look more intimidating.
"Ah, um..sure," Xiangling says quietly. So she doesn't have a choice, then. She manages to catch the attention of the next taxi and the other girl is in the backseat at lightning speed, telling the driver where to go.
"I'm Xinyan, by the way," the strange girl says, holding her hand out. "You?"
"..Xiangling." After a moment's hesitation, she shakes her hand. Her fingers are rough and calloused.
"I don't bite," Xinyan chuckles. "I just got stuck with this scary ol' face!"
Now Xiangling recognizes her. She's a musician, the lead in a band that got famous a couple months ago. She's all over YouTube and Spotify. "How come you're hiding from the paparazzi?"
"Cuz they want all the details about me and it's none of their business. Not very rock-n-roll of them, y'know?" She picks at the fabric of the seat, tracing strange patterns with her fingers. "I sure hope you don't mind me draggin' you along.."
"It's fine," Xiangling says, focused on the patterns and trying to figure out what they are. "I wasn't on my way to anything important, so.."
🎸🌶
Xinyan's favorite story to tell is that one. The day she met Xiangling, how they drove to a completely random address in the middle of town and got lost. How they ended up in the back of a convenience store, chugging energy drinks. How when they both returned home, they never expected to see each other again.
Xiangling's favorite story to tell is the day she started seeing the flowers on her arm.
🎸🌶
On her eighteenth birthday, just half a year later, she pulled up her sleeve to see if her soulmate had written anything. To her surprise, beautiful flowers and intricate designs covered her wrist, drawn in a thin pen line. Whoever her soulmate was had a gift.
She saw the flowers every day, at different times. One day they were all the way up to her elbow before noon.
It wasn't for another half a year before she found the artist. She'd been at a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop when someone rushed over and knocked on her table.
"Hey, you're that girl who was in the taxi, right?" The voice was hushed but just as excited as ever. And on her arm, the same designs as Xiangling had.
🎸🌶
Xinyan wrote a song for Xiangling on their one-year anniversary and surprised her with tickets to the band's next concert. As the stage lights turned on, their eyes found each other and it seemed like sparks flew.
Xinyan had never poured so much into her music. She couldn't help but dance a little in her spot on the stage, music replacing the blood in her veins and controlling her body for her. She let the words spill from her mouth like they were natural, as though she was breathing them. From the audience Xiangling looked as though she'd been enchanted, watching as Xinyan played for her and only her.
Even after everything was over, the song had still taken over her body. She found herself jumping off the stage, into the crowd and pulling Xiangling back with her, kissing her in front of everyone there.
Nothing mattered but her.
